PeopleofSuperintelligence

Researcher

Philipp Berens

Philipp Berens is a Tübingen data scientist who applies machine learning to the retina and to the early diagnosis of nervous-system disease. After a Diplom in bioinformatics and a BA in philosophy at Tübingen, he earned his doctorate in 2013 and co-authored a 2016 Nature study showing that the mouse retina has more than 30 functional output channels. With Dmitry Kobak, he published a protocol for t-SNE visualisations of single-cell data in 2019, and the European Research Council gave him a Starting Grant in 2022. In 2023 he became founding director of the Hertie Institute for AI in Brain Health, and in April 2026 the Eyewire II team he belongs to received an RPB Transformational Team Science Award. He is Professor of Data Science at the University of Tübingen, director of Hertie AI, a spokesperson of the Cluster of Excellence “Machine Learning: New Perspectives for Science”, and an ELLIS Scholar.

Born
1981

Years link to their sources.

Timeline

  1. 2008–2013

    Bioinformatics and a Tübingen PhD

    He earns a Diplom in bioinformatics at the University of Tübingen in 2008 and a BA in philosophy in 2009. From 2008 to 2012, he is a PhD student at the Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics in Tübingen and at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, and he receives his Dr. rer. nat. in computational and systems neuroscience in 2013.

  2. 2012–2016

    A postdoc and a Nature paper

    From 2012 to 2016, he is a postdoctoral researcher at the Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience at the University of Tübingen, and he wins the Bernstein Award for Computational Neuroscience in 2015. In 2016, he co-authors “The functional diversity of retinal ganglion cells in the mouse” in Nature with Tom Baden, Katrin Franke, Miroslav Román Rosón, Matthias Bethge and Thomas Euler. Two-photon calcium imaging of more than 11,000 cells shows that the mouse retina has more than 30 functional output channels, an encoding strategy that resembles state-of-the-art artificial vision systems.

  3. 2016–2018

    Group leader and full professor

    In 2016, he becomes group leader for Data Science for Vision Research at the Institute for Ophthalmic Research in Tübingen. He completes his habilitation in biostatistics in 2017, and in 2017 the German Neuroscience Society gives him its FEI Technology Award for using machine learning to define cell types in the nervous system. In 2018, he becomes full professor of Data Science for Vision Research.

  4. 2019

    A t-SNE protocol for transcriptomics

    In 2019, he and Dmitry Kobak publish “The art of using t-SNE for single-cell transcriptomics” in Nature Communications. The paper describes a protocol with PCA initialisation, a high learning rate and multi-scale similarity kernels that gives more faithful t-SNE visualisations of single-cell RNA-seq data.

  5. 2022

    An ERC Starting Grant

    In 2022, the European Research Council awards him a Starting Grant of about 1.5 million euros over five years. The project, NextMechMod, develops models and algorithms for amacrine cells, nerve cells of the retina.

  6. 2023

    Founding the Hertie AI institute

    In February 2023, the Hertie Institute for Artificial Intelligence in Brain Health (Hertie AI) opens at the Medical Faculty of the University of Tübingen, with Berens as founding director. The Hertie Foundation provides 10 million euros for an initial five years, and the institute is the first in Germany to study prevention and early diagnosis of nervous-system diseases with AI methods.

  7. April 2026

    An Eyewire II team award

    In April 2026, Research to Prevent Blindness gives the Eyewire II project a $950,000 RPB Transformational Team Science Award. He belongs to the international team of four, with Thomas Euler, that combines functional calcium imaging and 3D electron microscopy to build a wiring diagram of the cell types in the mouse retina.

  8. As of October 2026

    Cluster spokesperson and Hertie AI director

    He is Professor of Data Science at the University of Tübingen and Director of the Hertie Institute for AI in Brain Health. With Ulrike von Luxburg, he is a spokesperson for the Cluster of Excellence “Machine Learning: New Perspectives for Science”, which the German Research Foundation (DFG) confirms in May 2025 for seven more years from 2026. He is also an ELLIS Scholar in the ELLIS Unit Tübingen.

Career

  1. Since 2012University of TübingenPostdoctoral researcher, Group leader for Data Science for Vision Research
  2. NowEuropean Laboratory for Learning and Intelligent SystemsELLIS Scholar

Education

  1. 2012Max Planck Institute for Intelligent SystemsPhD student
  2. 2012Baylor College of MedicinePhD student
  3. 2009University of TübingenBA in philosophy
  4. 2008University of TübingenDiplom in bioinformatics

From the biography.

  1. Google has the highest combined h-index among AI organizationsIncludes European Laboratory for Learning and Intelligent Systems. We estimate that Google holds the highest combined h-index at 8,016, while universities account for 73% of the deduplicated total across AI organizations.
  2. 44% of AI career moves go from one university to anotherIncludes European Laboratory for Learning and Intelligent Systems. We estimate how 26,439 AI career moves link universities, companies, labs, nonprofits and government research centers, with decade counts, net flows and the top paths.
  3. 5 of the 25 people with the most-cited recent papers also lead on career citationsIncludes European Laboratory for Learning and Intelligent Systems. We compare citations to 2023–2025 papers with career citations and h-index, after correcting reviewed publication-date errors: who leads, when they started and where they work.
  4. 11% of AI doctorate holders from 2010 to 2016 founded or led a company or lab by 10 years after graduationIncludes University of Tübingen. We estimate how often AI doctorate holders founded or led a company or lab by 10 years after graduation, how waiting times compare between founders and top jobs, and which universities trained the most.

Colleagues

People named in this biography, and people with dated positions at the same organization in the same years.

Sources and credits

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  1. Philipp Berens eye-tuebingen.de. Checked 22 October 2026.
  2. The functional diversity of retinal ganglion cells in the mouse - PMC pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov. Checked 22 October 2026.
  3. data science for vision research philippberens.wordpress.com. Checked 22 October 2026.
  4. The art of using t-SNE for single-cell transcriptomics | Nature Communications nature.com. Checked 22 October 2026.
  5. ERC Starting Grant for Philipp Berens | Cyber Valley cyber-valley.de. Checked 22 October 2026.
  6. Hertie Foundation establishes new institute combining artificial intelligence and neuroscience | University of Tübingen uni-tuebingen.de. Checked 22 October 2026.
  7. Research to Prevent Blindness Award to Enable Transformational Scientific Milestone in Neuroscience and Vision Science - Research to Prevent Blindness rpbusa.org. Checked 22 October 2026.
  8. Award for Philipp Berens and Thomas Euler | University of Tübingen uni-tuebingen.de. Checked 22 October 2026.
  9. We Made It: Our Cluster of Excellence Secures Another Funding Period | University of Tübingen uni-tuebingen.de. Checked 22 October 2026.
  10. Philipp Berens | European Laboratory for Learning and Intelligent Systems ellis.eu. Checked 22 October 2026.